Hong Kong - Day 8: Lamma Island

Today we headed out to Lamma island for a little hiking, some swimming, and some seafood. It is the 3rd largest island in Hong Kong and supposedly is very popular in the summer with the locals for a get-away from the city. It isn't very populated and is very different than the main city of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong island has been slowing growing through land reclamation. It seems they are filling in more and more of the harbor and then putting up more skyscrapers. I read something that it has grown out by about 4 city blocks in recent years. This is near the piers where we caught the ferry.
Our ferry to Lamma.

There are no cars on the island. These are all the bikes lining both sides of the ferry dock.

Yung Shue Wan - one of the two main "cities" on the island. From here, we set out on a 90 minute hike across the island with a stop near the end at a beach for relaxing and swimming.

Hung Shing Yeh Beach - the first beach we came to - it is the more popular beach, probably because it is closer to the houses. We just admired it and kept walking...

A nice view part way up the mountain and a good pit-stop! Thanks to Mel for the camera tri-pod that you can wrap around trees and such! It's the first time I've remembered to take it hiking (or anywhere else useful!). There's a second picture later!

There wasn't really anything for Chris to imitate today, so this is what he came up with...

I've no clue what this one is....

The hillside was very rocky. The only trees were closer to the bottom of the hill.

Sok Kwu Wan - our eventual destination. What you see is the whole "town". There are a bunch of fish breeding rafts that float out in the harbor - I think these somehow have tank areas under them where they raise fish???

Lo So Shing Beach - a very welcome stop and cool down. Even though today was one of the coolest days, it was still in the low 80's and super humid. The water is about the same temperature as the air, but it still felt nice to take a break and cool down. We were the only ones on the beach, so we had a very personalized lifeguard service!

The first vegetable garden I've seen!

On the home stretch into Sok Kwu Wan.

Our eventual lunch - all of it caught in local waters (so the book says!).

What Chris made us order for lunch....(if you click the picture you can actually read it)

What I required to eat this for lunch....she asked "small or big", I was very clear I wanted the big! :)

Lunch turned out to be very good. You would all be so proud of what we ate - everything! We had a very nice waiter who showed us how to eat everything - luckily he could demonstrate because he didn't speak much English.
If we hadn't eaten all this with our fingers, it would have been hilarious to get pictures or video of it all!
1. Boiled Shrimp - you have to yank the tail off, peel it back the shell? skin?, then, without looking (since gross stuff comes out), pull the head off. They had a tasty soy sauce something to dip them in. They were quite good, but way to hard for Chris to figure out - I peeled most of them Chris had the luxury of just eating.
2. Steamed Scallops - this was, by far, the tastiest. The scallop was still stuck to the shell, so you had to somehow figure out how to wrestle it loose. The tiny fork helped, but so did your fingers! It came with some sort of clear noodle and lots of garlic.
3. Spicy Sea Snails - this was my most least favorite, but I ate my half!! The spicy sauce that it came in certainly helped a lot. For these, you hold the shell in your hand, take a long, think toothpick and you stab the end of the snail and pull it out of its shell. This is also best done without looking - stab, then look at the beautiful scenery and stuff it in your mouth. :) Thank goodness there were only 6 of these I had to eat! It was mostly the tough texture that I disliked.
4. Fried Clams - These were not fried - let's say they were sauteed with the black bean and chili sauce. These were tasty. These were funny because Chris couldn't tell what was carrot, onion and spicy peppers. Somehow, he got a large pepper with nearly every bite. He had a good case of the hicups! After a few of these, I picked them out for him. These were probably the easiest thing to eat, but since we were so dirty from everything else, we ended up eating most of these with our fingers!
5. Noodles - these were so good, yet all it was was noodles, mushrooms and green onions with some sort of light sauce. Our waiter helped us wash our hands before getting to the noodles, as we were suppose to use our chopsticks for this item - an always entertaining experience. The waiter was standing and watching us and he was so amused (or was it disgusted?) by Chris' use of the chopsticks that he made Chris stop eating and tried to teach him to use the chopsticks properly. After several tries, he just gave up and shoved the mini-fork at Chris to tell him to use that instead! I mean, Chris manages to get the food off his plate and into his mouth with the things, so who cares how he does it? :) The guy found it funny, as did I, so it was worth it! The funniest thing is, before we came here, I couldn't use chopsticks for anything and Chris seemed to be able to. Under the pressure of only having chopsticks at some of these restaurants, I have actually figured it out. I am definitely no pro and have shot and dropped my share of things, but I am actually surviving! I forgot all about practicing before we got here!
6. Fresh Fruit - this was some of the best watermelon and pineapple we've had here. I don't really even like pineapple, but I had a couple bites of it!
All in all, I am very glad we chose what we did for lunch. I would have never tried any of it anywhere else. They had everything seasoned so good that it was hard to not like it! We were very proud of ourselves for finishing every last bite and enjoying it!

Our ride home - the restaurant had a free boat shuttle back to Hong Kong. It didn't go nearly as fast as the ferry, but it did have a nice open air deck we could sit on and enjoy the ride back.